In 1968, there were many national tragedies such as student riots, Vietnam and political assassinations. Not as momentous, but devastating to me at the time--when I was nine--was ABC's cancellation of the Batman series after three seasons. Granted the show was running out of steam with Batgirl being brought in to bolster the ratings. Plus the number of episodes per week was cut down from two to one with the cliffhanger element eliminated. Sharp viewers might have noticed that interior scenes not taking place on existing sets such as Stately Wayne Manor, Commissioner Gordon's office or the Batcave, took place in black voids with no walls to save building costs. To add insult to injury, NBC was ready to pick the show up for a fourth season, but ABC had destroyed the expensive Batcave set. The Peacock Network balked at spending $100K to build a new set and passed, thus condemning the campy adventure series to oblivion. I read somewhere that they planned to send Robin/Dick Grayson to college and eliminate Chief O'Hara to save on expenses, leaving only Batman, Batgirl, Alfred, and Commissioner Gordon as the regular cast. Aunt Harriet (Madge Blake) was cut after the second season. Part of the appeal of the series was Bruce and Dick were grown-up boys living in an adolescent fantasy club house (Wayne Manor/the Batcave) with Aunt Harriet as a sort of dithering house mother. Batgirl's introduction in the third season introduced a weird dynamic with the dynamic Daredoll as a possible female mate for Batman. She was unlike the threatening villainesses of previous seasons such as Catwoman and Marsha, Queen of Diamonds. Batgirl was a "nice" girl and not a dangerous vamp. But anyway, I digress.
Fortunately, the Caped Crusaders continued in animated series. Since these shows took on the format and general tone of the Batman 66-8 series, we can regard them as unofficial fourth and fifth seasons. The Adventures of Batman premiered on CBS in September 1968 on Saturday mornings after the ABC live action series was cancelled. These seven-minute segments, often in two parts with a cliffhanger like the ABC series, were part of the Superman/Batman Hour. Olan Soule provided Batman's voice (the veteran character actor had appeared on ABC's Batman as a newscaster during a King Tut episode) and disc jockey Casey Kasem was Robin. Thirty-four segments were produced by Filmation Studios. In addition to Batman, Robin, Alfred the butler, Commissioner Gordon, Chief O'Hara and Batgirl, recurring characters included the hold-over supervillains Joker, Penguin, Riddler, Catwoman, Mr. Freeze and the Mad Hatter. Ted Knight, later of the Mary Tyler Moore Show, supplied most of the villains' voices as well as that of the narrator. Larry Storch of F Troop did the Joker. Jane Webb was Batgirl and Catwoman. There were more team-ups with super-villains since they had to pay fewer actors. Penguin, Joker, Ridder and Catwoman often joined forces and in one memorable episode, the Joker was elected (unfairly) Mayor of Gotham City and Penguin and Riddler joined him in the city's new crime-first administration. Donald Trump took a leaf from the Joker's book, if you catch my drift.
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| Simon the Pieman in disguise as Mrs. Apple |
There were some original villains such as the Dollman and the Judge. Scarecrow had been in the comics and appeared here. The best new crook was Simon the Pieman, a thief who favored pastry-themed capers and sounded like WC Fields. He also had a weird penchant for disguising himself in drag as sweet little old lady Mrs. Apple. His gun moll was aptly named Charlotte Russe. Simon and his nefarious bakers appeared in two stories spread across four segments.
After showing up on Superfriends and in two Scooby Doo movies from Hanna-Barbera, the Dynamic Duo resurfaced in their own show, The New Adventures of Batman, again from Filmation in 1977. This series used most of the same character sheets as the 1968 series and Adam West and Burt Ward returned to their original roles of Batman and Robin while Soule and Kasem continued in the same parts on Superfriends. (The Dynamic Duo usually got stuck mentoring Superfriends summer interns Wendy and Marvin.) The 1977 series went even further into the campy territory of the 1966 live-action series. In addition to Batman, Robin, Batgirl and Commissioner Gordon, a new, obnoxious character Bat-Mite was added. A creation from the 1950s comic-books, Bat-Mite was a magical devoted fan of Batman's from another dimension constantly getting our heroes into trouble through his clumsy efforts to help. Bat-Mite was brought in as a parallel to Superman's extra-dimensional pest Mr. Mxzypltk. Additionally, there were several outer space stories much like the flying saucers and aliens plotlines of the early Silver Age.
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Scenes from The New Adventures
of Batman (1977) |
Joker, Penguin, Catwoman, and Mr. Freeze were returning villains. (The Riddler and Scarecrow were not available as they were signed up for Superfriends vs. the Legion of Doom on ABC.) Clayface, a villain from the comics, made his animated debut. New nemeses included Sweet Tooth (a candy-obsessed creep who sounded like Paul Lynde), Electro (not to be confused with the same-named menace from Spider-Man), The Chameleon, Dr. Devious, Professor Bubbles, and Zarbor, also from Bat-Mite's plane of existence. (I tried to imagine Lynde as Special Guest Villain on the live-action show.) This series was pretty childish and appealed mainly to younger kids. I was in just about to graduate high school when it aired, but I still watched for nostalgic reasons.
There were only 16 episodes produced which were later incorporated with Filmation's cartoons of Tarzan, Zorro, Web Woman, Super Stretch and Micro Woman, Manta and Moray, Freedom Force (consisting of Isis, Super-Samurai, Merlin and Hercules) and Jason of Star Command, the only live action segment, to form Tarzan and the Super 7. The Batman segments were edited down to ten minute segments. The whole slew reappeared on NBC as Batman and the Super 7 during the 1980-81 season.
There were subsequent Batman series including the 1991 Batman: The Animated Series, Batman Beyond (1999) and many others. But these took a darker, noirish tone, departing from the goofy 1960s feel of the live action series. So I didn't really take an interest in them.
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Victor Buono and Lee Merriwether
on Batman. |
This resurgence of Bat-mania on my part started with a desire to rewatch the old series to catch adult humor that went over my head as a kid. I have the entire 1966-8 series on DVD. I've been watching the King Tut episodes because those were not my favorite as a kid and I missed the high comedy of Victor Buono's way over-the-top performance. In one riotous scene, Tut bursts into police headquarters, surprising Chief O'Hara. "How did you get in here, didn't anybody see you?" asks the astonished head cop. Buono, attired in outlandish ancient Egyptian finery, pauses and his deadpan response is "Well, yes, they saw me" which I found hilarious. Neil Hamilton as Commissioner Gordon was also brilliant. A veteran of the silent film era, Hamilton gave every one of his preposterously campy lines a deadly serious reading, heightening the exaggerated comedy.
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